Chuck vs the iPhone
by Doc in Oz
Summary: At the start of season two, all the team have iPhones. This is a tale of those dark, traumatic days
1. Denial

**Chuck vs the iPhone.**

_A while back, Aerox2109 (and his pseudo-pseudonym) wrote a serious, dark and brilliant fiction that referred to the K__ü__bler-Ross stages of grief. For some reason, the concept of the five stages struck a chord with me, and wouldn't let me go._

_Could you apply K__ü__bler-Ross to something other than dying? Falling in love, for example. Or other traumatic and life changing moments….._

_In June of this year (while I was in hospital – a big building with patients, but that's not important right now), my wife upgraded us both to iPhones. The transition was relatively easy for us, because she'd received one for work earlier in the year. __That__ transition, on the other hand, did not go smoothly. And for two fun filled weeks, she let me know of her displeasure with the new stupid work phone. And anything associated with the new stupid work phone. Including people who've just picked the new stupid work phone up to look at it….._

-o0o-

**Summary: **By the start of season 2, all of team Bartowski were using new iPhones. How this happened was never explained. This is a tale of those dark and terrible days.

As of one of my 'birthdays with a naught in it,' I don't own Chuck, et al.

-o0o-

_I feel fine._

_This can't be happening to me._

**1. Denial**

-o0o-

1903 hours Tango, Tuesday July 15, 2008.

"General, thank you, but we don't need replacement cell phones. The ones we have are fine."

'_Major Casey, these new iPhones have significantly greater onboard storage. And I'm told, they now have Internet access. Our techs have preloaded them with apes that they assure me, you may find very useful during missions. And I'm told they are very user friendly. Good day, team.'_

The screen went dark as soon as Brigadier General D. Beckman (USAF, and current head of the NSA) stabbed her finger on the cut-off button, preventing her from hearing Chuck Bartowski mutter, "She does know its apps, not apes, right? I mean an application of apes might be dangerous. And itchy."

Sarah Walker, the beautiful CIA agent to Chuck's right smirked a little, which was sort of Chuck's intention.

"Not to mention, messy," Chuck concluded after remembering a YouTube video clip involving chimps.

Saying that Chuck was attracted to Sarah, was like saying 'the Large Hadron Collider owners manual is a little heavy,' and despite her protestations that their fake relationship was fake, and just a professional cover to protect him, Chuck sometimes felt she was attracted to him.

Hence his efforts to amuse her.

The larger and older man to Chuck's left did not smirk. Or smile. Ever. Major John Casey (USMC, currently on a sequestered tour with the NSA), muttered under his breath, "I like my Nokia," as he turned from the pair, stomping away. Well, he wanted to stomp away, but the clandestine teleconference with their section chief(s) had been held in what would normally be the living room of Casey's apartment, aka, his base of operations.

Base of operation, because, most living rooms don't have the surveillance gear and spy-y gadgets that Casey had decorated his with, rendering it something reminiscent of the bridge of an Ohio class submarine. So, Casey stomped off to the kitchenette. From his expression, it seemed to appear that, as far as Casey was concerned, stomping off to a kitchenette of any description, wasn't quite as satisfying as, say, stomping off anywhere else.

"Well, I've been meaning to change up to an iPhone. That'd mean I don't have to carry a phone, and an iPod. And if I had my headphones in, and you," Chuck indicated Sarah, "called me, I wouldn't have to take my headphones out."

"This is a high tech piece of government issued equipment, Bartowski. You're not going to fill it with your whiney, girly rap-crap from bands that no one else has ever heard of," growled Casey from his kitchenette.

"So am I," argued Chuck. "High tech. And governm….. okay, that didn't come out right. But I have a computer in my head. And not all of my music is from indie bands," he turned to say quietly to Sarah as an aside, "I know he has Pink Floyd. I've heard 'Learning to fly' belting out of here sometimes."

Then he said a little louder, "And if you can find an eight track adapter, you could play yours in your car."

Chuck looked at the Terminator-esque expression Casey was burning at him, and he leaned over and without taking his eyes off the evidently angry man in the kitchenette, asked Sarah quietly, "Too much?"

As it was in her job description to protect Chuck Bartowski from harm, she protected him. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Sarah picked up the two packages containing the his-and-hers iPhones, and she then dragged him to safety, across the courtyard and into Casa Bartowski.

-o0o-

She looked at her asset, happily opening the 'his' box like a kid under the Christmas tree. His innocent enthusiasm was adorable. And just a little contagious. They'd set themselves up on the couch, in front of the TV, while Devon thawed out some left-overs for them to eat for dinner – Ellie was on nights this week.

"Sarah, no! Peeling the film off the screen is a momentous occasion. It needs to be done with a sense of ceremony….. arrrrrgh! You're killing me woman! Not like a band-aid, but with mmmmmmphhh…."

She looked, apparently pleased with the effect that stretching the film across his lips had. Sadly, it didn't stick to Chuck as well as it had the phone. "So, what now?" she wanted to know, after she released him.

"Plllllbbbbt. Okay….. if its anything like my iPooo-oodsss….. pretty sure we have toooooo….." Chuck dragged out while he read the quick start guide, "Yeah, here we are. Charge for four to six hours. You wanna charge it here, or go home and charge it there?" he asked her.

"Charging it here would mean staying the night," she said as she then placed her hand on the back of his, and whispered, "You okay with that?"

"A new iPhone, and my amazing," his voice also dipped to a whisper, "fake," before resuming normal broadcast, "girlfriend stay over. Or a new iPhone. Hmmm….. Decisions, decisions….."

"Okay, smarty pants," she smirked as she took the charger and cable from the box. Holding them out to him, she said, "Outlet me."

Chuck sighed theatrically and said to a higher power that evidently lived in the ceiling, or at least to the surveillance equipment, "Been a year, and she still doesn't get nerds." He sighed again and then pointed to his chest, "Nerd." And then pointed over his left shoulder, in the direction of his bedroom, "Fourteen different iPod connections. Well, I lie," he shrugged, "fourteen might be an exaggeration. But more than three, anyways."

She tilted her head for a moment, considering him, and then leant forward and whispered into his ear, "Why Chuck, are you saying you know more than _three_ ways to …. plug …. me …. in?"

She sat back, as she smiled and batted her eyelashes at him, as she judged the effect on him.

Chuck would later swear that there was a long, loud wet, fritttttttzzzy sort of zap sound. But at the time, he sat there, only able to blink slowly, and swallow. Eventually he remembered he needed to breath.

Before the goose bumps subsided, Chuck stared hard at the woman opposite, who was projecting an aura of beatific innocence. Eventually he was able to ask, "Do you enjoy doing that, missy?"

Sarah laughed, "Oh, you have no idea, mister Bartowski."

Devon called out when the last meal went _ding_ from the microwave, "Food's ready guys. Dig in!"

-o0o-

At 0309 hours on Wednesday, June sixteenth of 2008, sensors indicated that an occupant of the Intersect host's place of residence left the spare bedroom, noted in the floor plans on file as bedroom two, and proceeded to the bathroom located on the ground floor.

Facial recognition software, GPS tracking and later visual verification of the composite night vision and white light recordings showed that the Intersect host urinated and was absent from bedroom two for three minutes, twenty two seconds. Subject hesitated for a further seventeen seconds after reentering bedroom two before climbing back into bed.

Chuck stood in the dim light, gazing at the woman occupying the middle of his bed.

When Chuck was a kid, back when his mom and dad were still around, Chuck had a cat. Or, as any cat owner will tell you, there was a cat who accepted food and adoration from the family that happened to live in the same house that the cat owned. Even as a child, it amazed Chuck how a small creature like Miss Kitty could occupy so much of the bed.

The heavenly creature currently sleeping à la starfish with only one shin under the sheet, having kicked most of the sheet off due to a southern California summers night, was considerably larger than Miss Kitty. Even allowing for the king sized bed, Chuck now seemed to only have about six inches remaining on his side of the bed.

She'd come into his life some nine months previously and turned it completely and totally upside down. Being told your ass now belongs to the government will do that. In order to keep things secret, she, or rather, they pretended to his family and friends to be lovers.

She kept denying it was anything more than pretend. And then, one day in November last year, the pair of them had stood in front of what looked like the biggest bomb that Chuck had ever seen, keeping in mind that Chuck watched a lot of movies.

And with only a smattering of seconds left to live, she kissed him. She. Kissed. Him. One toe curling, hell of a kiss, by the way. It would have been a nice way to go, if you had to go. Only they didn't die. The contents of the thing they'd stood kissing each other hungrily in front of had turned out to be a figurative bombshell. But it wasn't Semtex, and they'd lived.

Chuck had worked in retail long enough to know that when a customer was complaining, and when they made the complaint into a personal attack, then the customer was in the wrong, and they also knew that they were in the wrong. The fact that Sarah denied that the kiss meant anything, and then angrily told him it was a mistake, one that she'd never make again, was in someway, was something approaching the best news he had since… well, for roughly the last five or six years. There _was_ something under the undercover.

Chuck wished he could turn the bedside light on, so he could see her face. He didn't, because she'd probably wake up, and he wanted to just look at her. She looked so peaceful and innocent when she slept. Chuck knew that Sarah and her aliases weren't innocent by just about any definition. But, the Sarah, _his_ Sarah, in his bed, right now, at this moment, the look on her face when she slept in his bed, her slight smile, even the way her fingers curled, there was something that made him want to gather her up into his arms and protect her.

Chuck sighed and got back into bed, clinging grimly onto the edge of the bed remaining for him. He wanted to pull the sheet up, to cover himself, but knew that Sarah would complain in her sleep, and just pull the sheet off him without fully waking up.

He did love that little sleeping protest she'd made when he'd gotten out. He thought it made her sound like a real girl.

Software recognized that, based on the breathing patterns, the Intersect host achieved stage two sleep in three minutes nine seconds and then stages three and four sleep seventeen minutes and twelve seconds after getting back into bed. The other occupant of the bed had stirred when the host alighted from bed, but she did not fully awaken.

This was the third time on file where one of the occupants of bedroom two was awake, watching the other occupant sleep.

-o0o-

At the Buy More, Morgan enthused over Chuck's new phone, "Oh, man, these are great! I wish I had one! Call someone, I want to see the picture you have when you call them."

That was the moment when Jeff roused himself, "Yeah….. ring blondie, your weiner chick ho. I wanna see what photo you have of her…"

"Jeff, eww. Not gonna happen," Chuck told the older Nerd Herder. "And maybe back up a skootch. Have a breath mint while you're at it?"

Chuck gazed down at his new cell phone. He realized there was a small problem. "Ah, right. Sorry Morgan, I ahhhh…. I don't know Sarah's new number….. in fact….." Chuck broke off, and peered around the store for Casey. Right. Casey wasn't rostered to start until later in the day.

So, how to find out his new cell number?

'_I'm a professional nerd. This shouldn't be a problem.'_

Chuck opened the panel, and after taking it out, looked at the micro SIM. It was blank.

Someone, probably the CIA, had removed the number.

-o0o-


	2. Anger

**Chuck vs the iPhone.**

-o0o-

_Why me? _

_It's not fair! _

_How can this happen to me? _

_Who is to blame? _

**2. Anger**

So, how to find out his new cell number? Chuck wondered. _'I'm a professional nerd. This shouldn't be a problem,' _he thought. Chuck opened the panel, and after taking it out, looked at the micro SIM. It was blank.

Someone, probably the CIA, had removed the number.

It actually took Chuck until Friday afternoon to discover that his new cell number was listed in the 'contacts' of his phone. Right up there, at the top. In plain sight, all the time. Disturbingly obvious, once you've found it. There was absolutely no way he was telling anyone how long it'd taken him to find that part of the screen.

He'd found his own number by cheating. He sent a text to Morgan since he knew that number, and off of Morgan's phone, he found his own, new number. After that, it was relatively easy.

He trotted across the lot, over to the Wienerlicious, where he found Sarah, contemplating a deep fryer rack of still frozen, and thus by definition, un-Sarahfied-crispy-crittered. "Haven't those poor things suffered enough?" he asked, indicating the fryer basket with a sardonic grin.

Happiness to see him battled with a hot burst of rage at being mocked over her (non-existent, she admitted, but still….) cooking skills. Concern eventually won. Chuck almost never came over this early in the day.

"Chuck? What's wrong? Did you," she double checked with a glance from side to side, that there was no one else around, and her voice dipped to a whisper, "flash?"

"Nah, nothing like that. Um…. Sarah? What's your cell number?"

She looked at him, puzzled, since she knew Chuck was well aware of her number. She even got as far as shaping her lips to begin chanting off her normal cell number. And then, she realized…..

Her eyes shot wide open. They'd been given new cells….. "We, we have new numbers… don't we?"

"Uh huh. And I don't think we were told our new ones. Unless Casey has some paperwork he forgot about. So, wanna know your new number?"

She leant over the counter, and dragged her new iPhone out from somewhere behind her, out of sight, and yet still on or about her person. She bobbed the phone between thumb and fore finger, so he could take it, and said with a smirk, "Okay, mister phone fixer. Show me."

Chuck took the phone, but was slightly distracted for a moment. The iPhone was still warm from where ever she'd hidden it. Which was probably next to her knives, Glock and poison darts. The image of a holster, with all these shiny items sprang unbidden into his mind. Only in Chuck's version, the holster was actually a lacy garter, clinging around a firm, long, smooth thigh…..

Chuck blinked the image away, only to find what was quite possibly the finest cleavage in recorded history, roughly two feet away. Chuck blinked again, and mentally slapped his own face in order to rouse himself from the slack jawed stupor he was beginning to suspect he might just possibly be afflicted by.

"I, um, I, um…. Right!" he cleared his throat, "Okay, well, we send a message to a phone whose number we _do_ know…." Chuck slid his thumb across her screen, and the phone screen opened up. "Oh, um, Sarah, you don't have a PIN number?"

"There's a what now?" she asked.

"You know, to unlock the phone, so no one else can use it. Or look at CIA secrets. Thought you were more paranoid than that." He tilted his head, and clarified by waggled the phone, "this."

She straightened up and looking steadily at him, she said seriously, "If anybody whose fingerprints are not in the onboard system, touches it, the C4 blows."

Chuck fumbled the phone slightly two or five times, and recovered it in suddenly sweaty fingers. He looked at her, "C4, really?" he squeaked.

"No, of course not, you idiot," she tried to resist rolling her eyes at him. "Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to keep sensitive information on a portable transmitter," she paused to look at her fake boyfriend, and thought about what her previous boyfriend had done to this man, "As you are probably already aware. Plus, I may need to call for backup straight away. My having to stop and type in a PIN could cost lives."

Chuck held her gaze for a moment, before saying, "You know, for most people, that's just an expression."

"Lucky for you, I'm not most people," she said, as she gave him a mock curtsy.

"That, you most certainly are not, Miss Walker," his lips twitched to one side, in an amused shape. "Okay, phone. We send a mess-aaaaa-ge…." he dragged out, while he fished a scrap of paper out of his top pocket. Looking at the number scrawled on the scrap, he started thumb typing on her phone, "…. to my phone. There. Annnnnd…." His own phone went 'ding' from is pocket. Fishing that out, he concluded, "…. we thus have your number in my phone. I reply, annnnnnd…" her phone dinged, "that's that," he concluded with a satisfied smile. "Save that number and Bob's your uncle."

-o0o-

Casey started his late shift in a bad mood. Nobody actually noticed. Not because the big man was a good actor, capable of keeping his emotions hidden. Nobody noticed, because he normally seemed to be in a bad mood, so no-one noticed anything different.

When Casey said Chuck's name, several staff thought it was Big Mike barking out 'Bartowski!' Even Chuck, who had watched Casey bark his name, flicked his head to look at Big Mike's office, just to double check.

"Um…." Chuck checked his watch, to buy himself some time to think. "… Morning there, John. Help you with something?"

Casey really should see someone about that vein, or artery, pulsing in the middle of his forehead at some stage, thought Chuck. And the chords standing out on his neck made him look a little like that bad guy Hulk in the new Ed Norton version. Casey continued his hot glare at Chuck for a few more throbbing pulsations of that forehead vein, or artery.

"How the….. far….Kurnell," Casey strangled out, coincidentally naming a small town on the placid shores of Botany Bay, "do you use this," Casey held his iPhone in a meaty paw. Chuck felt sure that squeezing it that hard would void the warranty. Even an NSA warranty. ".… thing?"

"Can't be that hard," said Chuck. "I mean, Jeff has one," Chuck waved he hand toward the rear of the store, indicating the staff facilities, including the disabled stall of the boys room.

Chuck now found an iPhone case now pressed painfully up against the base of his nose. "You _don't _know how to use it?" was menaced toward the man being held at iPhone point.

"Um, not yet. I've had mine for just as long as you've had yours, right?"

"You're a geek. You're supposed to know all this stuff."

"Um, its nerd," Chuck mumbled, "and I'm more your Windows sort of…. You know what? I'll look into it, see what I can find, right? We'd have to have a 'how-to' manual or something lying around."

The pressure eased off Chuck's top lip and or base of nose region.

Chuck wondered if it was lunch time yet. So he could go over and be protected by his kick-ass ninja, CIA assigned protector. He checked his watch, and then realized he'd just done that only slightly before Casey had tried to fit an iPhone up one (or slightly disturbingly, both) of his nostrils.

Sadly, Chuck had over an hour till he could go see Sarah. He headed back behind the Nerd Herd desk, to see if there were any manuals or user hints he could liberate, and thus save the day.

"Charles, what are you doing?" asked Lester, in that manner of his, the one that made you want to take a shower. A shower using bleach. And a Brillo pad.

"Hi, Lester. I just got myself a new iPhone. I was just wanting to…."

"Standard rates, Bartowski. Like everyone else."

Chuck said, incredulously, "Lester, I work here."

"And yet," Lester intimated, "you did not purchase said Apple product _from_ this _very_ boutique. Thus…" Lester spread his hands, to indicate his hands were tied, metaphorically, in this matter, "….standard rates, Bartowski." Lester folded his arms, "Like everybody else."

-o0o-

Normally, when Chuck went to see Sarah, she greeted him with a huge, and he felt, genuine, smile.

Not this time. From the way her knuckles whitened as she gripped the fryer basket, Chuck began to worry. He'd seen her accuracy with thrown items.

"Um, Sarah, you…. you okay?"

Sarah carefully replaced the hot oil dripping fryer cage into the drip rack, and wished momentarily for a nicely balanced chefs knife. Something with a bit of heft to it.

"Chuck…" she told the wall, "… this is not a good time."

"Sarah? What's wrong?"

The look on her face, as she whipped around to glare him, made him take a step backwards. And maybe a teeny tiny part of his brain contemplated running, screaming, back over to the Buy More.

"Sarah, you're frightening the Intersect," he said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone.

"All I want to do," her eyes flashed anger, "is call my boyfriend. But _naouuuu_," she dragged out, sarcastically. "This …. This stupid….." she was holding the phone in a manner that reminded Chuck somewhat of Casey, and his attempt at nasal exploration a while back, "fff….phone," she growled between gritted teeth, "won't let me do that."

Chuck was suddenly reminded of one of those rom com videos that Ellie loved, and he and Devon had learned to sit quietly through. There was a scene in one of them, where the guy pissed his girlfriend-of-convenience totally off. And when the female lead had glared furiously at the male lead, the same way Sarah was glaring at him right now, the hero then went and opened his fool trap, and told her that she was cute when she was mad. The ensuing verbal barrage was hilarious and one of the highlights of the world of romantic comedies.

Chuck kept his mouth firmly shut. Sarah did not look cute. She looked like flaming death. She looked like angry flaming death. All she needed was The Ride Of The Valkyries playing at full volume.

Scratch that. Sarah didn't need any help to be scary. After a few minutes of Sarah loudly nose breathing, Chuck pointed over his shoulder, back over to the Buy More, and he mumbled, "I've been trying to get the ….." he trailed off.

"I'll keep trying," he said as he bravely turned his tail, fled, and gallantly, he chickened out.

-o0o-

Today was one of those niggling days when the universe seems to go out of its way to annoy him, just for its own amusement. Chuck rather felt that that seemed to have happened a lot, during the last year or so.

The customers seem to space their timing perfectly so that Chuck wasn't able to look anything up on the service desktop. Every time he got to the computer, a customer came along with time wasting questions. And when he got back to the computer, it had timed out, and he needed to log back on.

And then another customer stood in front of him, wanting to know the difference between wi fi and wireless.

Jeff and Lester ran a tag team to protect the precious manuals. At one stage during the afternoon, when Chuck thought Jeff was sleeping at the desk, and Lester was out on a call, Chuck actually got a finger onto the spine. And then Jeff's eyes opened, and he slurred, "Don't even think about it, Bartowski."

In the afternoon, Casey interrupted Chuck's attempts at research. "Anything yet, moron?" Casey asked after enticing Chuck to leave the safety of the Herd desk, by grabbing his (Chuck's) collar and hauling him (still Chuck) over to the appliances section of the store.

"No! And there won't be if you keep inter…..urk."

"Bartowski? Just because Walker's got her panties in a bunch, doesn't mean you get to threaten anybody. Leave these things to people who know what they're doing." Said Casey in a scarily reasonable tone. Despite the paw around the neck of a nerd.

"Now, go find out how to use this… two bit…. four flushing….. dirty….. rotten….. thing!" This time the reasonable part of his tone was absent. The scary part was still front and centre.

-o0o-


	3. Bargaining

_**Technical note**__ – I'm pretty sure iCloud does not operate the way I have described it here. In fact, I'd put at least $2.19 on it, that iCloud did not even exist in July 2008, when this story is set. I could be wrong. I've been wrong lots of times before. Why should this be any… sorry._

_Also, coincidentally, this chapter is set on the anniversary date of Neil and Buzz doing the Funky Chicken on the moon. That has nothing to do with this story at all. Just sayin'._

_As of 31 January 2013, I don't own Chuck or Apple, et al._

**Chuck vs the iPhone**

-o0o-

_I'll do anything, for a few more years._

_I will give my life savings, if…_

**3. Bargaining**

Sunday, July 20, 2008. 1027 hours Tango.

Video logs, held on file by the NSA, show that the Intersect host and his NSA handler, engaged in a short conversation in the courtyard of the Echo Park apartment complex. Major Casey is on file as reporting that they were conversing about the excellent qualities of the new cell phones that the team had recently been issued, and how much Major Casey, in particular, appreciated the upgrade.

Audio recordings of the conversation are of no useable quality, as the courtyard fountain had been repaired some ten minutes prior. The white noise of the water feature drowned out the conversation. Major Casey had also unfortunately positioned himself, by accident, between the host and the camera best positioned, so a lip read transcription of the recording is not available.

Major Casey had reported the non functioning fountain to the building management on several occasions, before taking matters into his own hands, and eventually turning the fountain on himself. When the Major, later that same day, disabled the fountain, he reported that he'd become accustomed to the quiet, and found the noise of the fountain distracting.

Major Casey reported that the host and himself parted with a companionable pat to the Intersect host's back. Major Casey's right hand only appears to be around the Intersect host's neck due to the angle of the camera position.

Major Casey returned to his apartment, reappearing ten minutes later with a wrench, and disabled the fountain. The Intersect host returned to his sister's apartment. After a phone call, initiated by the Intersect host, the handler assigned by the CIA arrived twenty three minutes after the phone call, and was admitted to the Intersect host's place of residence by the host's sister.

-o0o-

Sarah found him in his room, sitting in front of his computer. The computer screen was covered with a multitude of little overlapping windows of what looked like computer-ese gobbledygook. He didn't shift his attention from the computer screen, and Sarah hesitated just inside the door.

This was a new experience for her. She wasn't used to walking into a room, and being ignored.

Certainly, not by Chuck. Normally, he would smile and greet her as if she was the best thing he'd seen that week. Having Chuck ignore her was… a little off putting, actually. Just as she was about to say his name and get his attention, he said, "I keep thinking I'm used to being at the government's Beckman call." He turned to face her, with the ghost of a smile, to see if she'd gotten the awful pun, "And then I find something that lets me know how far down the food chain, I truly ruley am."

She blinked. No matter what her problems, or how she felt at the moment, Chuck was always her first priority. She'd only known him since September last year, but she already knew all the nuances of Chuck Bartowski's many moods. He pretty much only had the one; Happy to see her.

Not this time.

On the other hand, she realized, he had known who it was behind him, without looking…..

"Chuck?"

He sighed at this computer, and then looked up at her, and after a moment, gave her a sad smile. "I know that everything I do is recorded, and I'm mostly gotten used to that." He paused, and gave her another sad smile, and with a slight head tilt, he repeated, "Mostly. But then I discover something else about me is being followed, studied and analyzed by some poor sod works for the CIA. Or the NSA." He presented his hand to his computer screen, like a game show hostess presenting a new car. "My computer's been hacked. I'm guessing by a large man, lives across the way," the game show hostess' gesture now moved to indicate Casey's apartment as the grand prize, "But I'm hacked. And I'm a bit annoyed with myself, I should have spotted it. Ol' sausage fingers over there was following a standard format we've used before."

"Chuck…"

He smiled, vaguely amused, "The up shot is, my music is also on Casey's phone, as well as his being on mine. Humor me, have you created a play list?"

"Um, music's not really….."

He nodded, and said, "I know. Just on the off chance, have a look," his head nodded slightly in encouragement.

She pulled the phone out of her back pocket, slid her thumb and studied her phone for a moment, turning away from him, to angle the phone at the Morgan Door for more light.

"Um….. I'm…." she said as the scrolled the screens back and forth.

Chuck stood up, and said, "Here," as he stood close behind her and with his right hand he took hers, the one holding her phone. Almost instinctively, she swung to press her back up to his chest, and he looked over her left shoulder, her cheek next to his. "That one," he said. His thumb opening up the icon marked _music._"Yep, you too. Well, you can listen to my music at least. If you wanted too, I mean."

She turned her head to the left, and looked up at him with a slight smile. He could feel her breath on his face, and he noted that the whites of her eyes were so white, there was a tint of blue to them.

And then she held his left hand to her torso, her breathing seemed to increase, and her pupils seemed to enlarge. The moment lasted an age, she tilted her head, as if silently giving him permission, and just as he was about to lean in, he felt her suddenly tense up. There was an overlap of throat clearing while they separated a few feet. Chuck's chest and abdomen were suddenly aware of her missing warmth.

"So, um, anyways," Chuck started while reseating himself at the computer desk, he was still trying to clear his thoughts of the woman who'd fitted so perfectly into his arms, it had all felt so…. natural. "By the looks of things, as all of our phones are on the same plan," he waved his hand to dismissively acknowledge that an iPhone issued by the government of the United States is not really, as such, on a cell phone plan, "There's a file sharing system. One of our phones buys a song, and all the phones on the same computer get that song."

"But, I'm not on…."

He did the game show thing towards his computer screen again, "Hacked. And I'm guessing you're using a file sharing program with Casey?" he asked, looking back up at her.

She didn't move.

"Thought so," he said, "Well, hope you enjoy my play list. Lists," he amended, holding up his own phone. "And Casey's one and, so far, only album, _Hot August Night_."

"Chuck, I sorr…."

"You know the scary thing? When he found my music on his phone, he didn't threaten to tear me limb from limb. That's when I called you."

-o0o-

"So, what did he say? Before you rang me, certainly not freaking out," she asked, with a straight face.

"Well, I think his first question was 'Who in the name of Reagan and all that is sacred, is _Band Of _freaking_ Horses_?'" Chuck said in a gravelly voice trying, and failing, to imitate Casey.

"I meant….."

"I know," he said with a half smile. "I think he's frustrated with the new phones…."

"…not the only…." she muttered off to the side.

"… and he might have a faulty, sorry, what was that?" he asked, tilting his head in query.

"Nothing," she declared, brightly, as she sat up straighter.

He held her gaze, almost as if he hadn't believed that it was 'nothing.' After a moment, Chuck continued, "He might have a reason to be frustrated. His phone says it has signal, but there are times he can't make calls or message. And it gets really hot. Like hot, hot. And then the battery runs out."

"I read that the battery in these things will only last…."

"He takes it off charge in the morning and by nine thirty, ten o'clock its flat."

"….okaaay, in that case, for Casey, he's taking things surprisingly well."

"I know," he leaned forward, towards her, "right? That's not the John Casey, we all know and love."

"Speak for yourself," she said in an amused tone.

Chuck sat, looking in the direction of his computer, without actually seeing the screensaver pictures, before admitting, "Sarah, I'm seriously wondering if we should ask the general if we can go back to our old phones."

She placed her hand on his knee, and said, "Chuck," he looked at her as soon as he felt her hand, "First off, generals don't get to be generals by backing down."

He nodded slightly, conceding that point. "Secondly," she said and emphasized with a squeeze of her hand, still resting on his knee, "Chuck, I've seen you in action. If you put your mind to something, you do it."

She sat up straighter, taking her hand back, and she said quietly, "When you try to get something, you get it."

He sat very still. Trying to see if she was serious, or if this was a CIA 'obedience school for assets' trick.

There was a tap at the glass of the Morgan Door. Casey stood outside.

-o0o-

Chuck opened the window, and Casey nodded to Chuck and Sarah.

After a few moments of silence, Chuck asked, "Something I can help you with, Casey?"

Casey looked off to one side, and said quietly and quickly, "I can turn the cameras off, if you help me."

"Um, excuse me?"

Casey looked directly at the pair standing inside the window, "I, uh, I happened to see you pair practicing your 'golf swing,'" he airquoted, "earlier. Well, look, if it'll help you figure out these phones, I can, I can turn the camera off. You know. For a bit."

Chuck said, shocked, "Casey! That's not…. I mean…."

Sarah placed her hand on Chuck's chest, and whispered, "Hang on. Think about it."

"WHAT?" he goggled at her.

"Not like that," she rolled her eyes at him, "Idiot," but she patted his chest while she looked steadily at him. "You mentioned earlier, that everything you do is recorded."

Chuck nodded, not following where this was leading.

"Well, how 'bout a night off? We're all," she gestured to include Casey, "… getting used to," she looked significantly at Casey, "our new phones, right?"

Casey nodded a very small amount.

"Well, one more night won't make a lot of difference." She turned to Chuck, "Take the night off. We'll leave you alone. No spies. Okay?"

Casey interjected, "Unless there's a mission."

"Unless there's a mission," amended Sarah. "But otherwise, no spies, a night off. We leave you alone."

"What about the phones?" Chuck asked, wondering if 'we leave you alone' meant she'd leave and go home.

"Tomorrow, I'll place a service call, ask for you, and you can look stuff up on the Wiener's computer. Deal?"

Chuck saw something he didn't think was possible. Casey looking at him hopefully.

-o0o-

Chuck rang her after dinner. "You could have stayed you know. I mean, not like that. I mean you're not a distraction. If I'm not doing anything, I'd like to be not doing anything with you, and you can stop me at any time….."

"Chuck," he could hear the amusement in her voice. "I meant what I said," she said in a more serious tone, "What ever you wanted, you can have. Sometimes we just have to let our subconscious work at it."

"Okaaay."

"Enjoy your night off," she said, "and I'll see you tomorrow."

"Kay."

After a companionable moment, she asked, "So, If I buy a song, both you and Casey get it too?"

"Looks that way."

"What about games and stuff?"

Chuck blinked, considering the implications. "Um, yeah, I guess," he said, not sure where she was going.

"So, could we change his ring tone to a fart?" she asked.

-o0o-


	4. Depression

**Chuck vs the iPhone**

-o0o-

_I'm so sad, why bother with anything?_

_I'm going to die soon, so what's the point?_

_I miss my loved on, why go on?_

**4. Depression**

Dawn, Los Angeles, CA

Wednesday July 23, 2008

Sarah was woken in the early morning, when his positional alert went off. Some GPS doohickie, at either Langley or Fort Meade, taking into consideration, the time of day and the physical proximity of his handlers, found that the chriteria warranted triggering the alert, sending a message to her new phone. She was half wondering if it was another problem with the smart phone, or if…. When she saw the location, she woke up properly.

She found him, right where the tracking dot in his watch said he would be. Just north of the Santa Monica pier, sitting on the beach.

She could almost say that it was 'their beach,' if their relationship had actually been as real as he wanted it to be. Not that they frequented this patch of sand all that much, but it was … special.

Special to both of them.

As soon as the tracker listed Santa Monica, she knew exactly where to look.

Just before she hit the sand, she took her shoes off, and carried them by the heels as she walked up behind him, the dry white sand squeaking slightly with each of her footsteps.

His attention stayed focused on the horizon as she sat cross-legged beside him. "If you're gonna try swimming to Australia," she said, "when you get just off Honolulu, hang a left. Not a sharp left, but say…. about twenty degrees or so… If you hit ice, you've gone too far," she demonstrated the angles with her hands.

He glanced at her, before returning his attention to the horizon. He was silent for long enough for her to become a little worried, before he said, "We…we're never going to be… be more than we are now. Are we?" he asked in a tone that showed he thought he already knew the answer.

"Okay, I know that clearly, I'm not funny, but that's not the response I was expecting. Chuck? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I started out with being just frustrated with this stupid damned phone. And then everything seemed to pile up. Everything that's gone wrong, J…." he started to say a name, and then corrected himself, "St…Stanford, the Intersect, you ….. everything," he looked down at the sand between his feet, and repeated, "everything," softly.

"Chuck, I'm sorr….."

He deliberately sat straighter, and took a deep breath, and in a typical Chuck manner, tried to lighten the mood, "So, you here to make sure I don't try swimming off to kangaroo land? Or do something else equally stupid?"

She mentally changed gears to keep up with him, and smiling gently she said, "You never stay in the car. I sometimes wonder if stupid is your default setting." She softened the comment with a shoulder bump.

He exhaled an amused snuff. They shared a smile before he then looked seriously at her and said, "If a guy does something stupid, it's because he's a guy. If he does the same stupid thing again, it's because he's trying to impress a girl."

"That's…. that's pretty eloquent for this early before breakfast."

"I thank you, but I'm paraphrasing the greatest philosopher of the age. Doctor Seuss."

She quietly told the sand covering her toes, "Ooh-kaaay. I remember the one with 'Sam I am.'" Then she looked up at him, "but I don't remember that one."

"It, ah, it was one of his last books, and the environmental movement was just beginning. Loran? Lysol? The Lox? Something like that."

She sat, surrounded by the morning cool and the smell of the ocean. The west coast always felt a little off to her. At dawn, the Sun should be coming up _from_ the ocean, not from behind her. After a moment, she whispered without looking at him, "You know you don't have to do something stupid to impress me, right?"

He looked at the sand, then at her, and then to the horizon, saying quietly, "You _do_ know you're Sarah Walker, right? I'm pretty sure it would take something completely amazing to impress you."

She looked steadily at him, and keeping silent, thought to herself that it did.

After a moment, he turned to meet her gaze.

Eventually she said, "You remember last …. November, I think, when Bryce came back?"

His face darkened, and he kept still, while he said in a flat tone, "I remember."

"He …. He asked me to come with him," she quietly told the sand in front of her.

He blinked, never suspecting this had happened. "…Sarah?"

"I had a choice. Stay here with y…. stay here, looking after you and this project," she glanced momentarily at him, and then she continued, telling the patch of sand, "or go back to a safe life, one that I've always known."

They sat quietly beside each other. Sarah, seemingly lost in thought, Chuck silent because he didn't know what to say.

Eventually, though, those pesky Bartowski blabbermouth genes won out, and he asked, "Why'd you stay?"

She stared at him, long enough for him to think she wasn't going to answer, before she answered quietly, "Because you're more important. And …"

Chuck said nothing, not wanting to break the moment. Eventually she gave him a sad smile and tilted her head, indicating it was time to go back. "Come on," she whispered.

He stood up, and offered his hand to assist her up. Once on their feet, they headed to the parked cars, pausing to put their shoes back on. He followed her in his Herder. She peeled off, to head back to her Hotel, once she saw he was safely home.

-o0o-

"Casey! Ready to roll?"

Aside from the white noise of nearby traffic, it was quiet.

Mentally girding his loins, Chuck thumped a little louder on Casey's door. "Casey! You okay? Time to go to work!"

There was the faint sound of movement from within. After an age, the door was opened by John Casey, who looked…..

"Casey? You look like sshh….weppes. You okay? Have you got a cold or some….thing…" Chuck ran out of steam because Casey was looking at him as if he (Casey) was a bored researcher, counting bacteria in pond scum. For the thousandth time.

Casey stood at the door, clad in an old 'wife beater' sleeveless, the Astro Boy boxer shorts that Ellie had given him for Christmas and a pair of green Crocs, his face unshaven and his hair uncombed. From the smell of things, he'd skipped the shower this morning too.

"Um, what's …. Case …..John? What's wrong?" Chuck asked, with genuine concern. Casey stared at him, unseeing and distant, before re-entering his dark apartment, reminding Chuck of a bear backing back into his cave. Chuck followed tentatively through the open door, now wishing he hadn't compared Casey to a bear.

Chuck left the door open, just in case he needed to scream like a girl. Or, like Lester.

"Casey, we need to go to work," said Chuck, and then he thought for a moment, and amended his previous statement, "Well, I need to go to work, to earn a living and stuff. But you need to come too, right? To protect me? Save me from.. bad… guys… and…stuff….." he petered out.

Casey looked at Chuck for the first time, and said, "I don't care." After an uncomfortable silence, Casey continued, and stated in an utterly indifferent monotone, "I hate this assignment. I hate Los Angeles, and I hate you."

"But," Chuck thought frantically. While he loved Sarah as his protector, Casey had saved his ass more times than he cared to think. "But…. you've…. you've never refused an order. And you were ordered, _ordered_ to protect me, so…." Chuck announced triumphantly, "I'm going to work. And so, you have to too."

Chuck started to fold his arms, to prove his unassailable logic. And then, when Casey started to get up, Chuck stopped folding his arms very quickly. Now they wandered, looking for a place to hide.

"Hmmp," was emitted from the large man, further reminding Chuck of Not-So-Gentle Ben, as he turned to leave the command centre, and went into his bedroom.

After a few moments, Chuck wondered if he should follow Casey, to see if he was getting ready for work, or was hiding under the covers. Not that he ever thought that Casey would hide under… anything, really.

After a moment or two, Chuck amended that to maybe exclude a camouflage net…..

Chuck inched down the hallway, in a manner he would later describe as 'cautiously.' Although, most anybody else watching Chuck's version of 'cautious,' would bandy around words like 'timorous,' 'petrified' and 'glacial.' About when Chuck hit the halfway mark, Casey opened his bedroom door, and came out. He was dressed in his Buy More uniform, although it was not in Casey's normal Corps-esque crispness.

Casey grunted, sounding like a bear that wanted to know, "Well, coming, then?"

It was a very quiet drive to work.

-o0o-

Today, while not completely freaking him out, had had an unsettling effect on him. What do you do with a depressed Marine? Chuck had suggested drive through, on the way to the Buy More. That offer died a lonely, quiet death shortly after the words, "How 'bout we…" left Chuck's mouth.

Casey spent the morning, and there was no other word for it, moping about the Buy More. He ignored customers, and wandered the aisles, listlessly.

Jeff sidled up to Casey, and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "What'd you score man?"

Casey gave Jeff the bored researcher look, and Jeff returned quietly to the desk.

Eventually, Casey migrated to the break room, and sat there evidently contemplating a foam cup of, cold, instant coffee.

Chuck had his epiphany about eleven. Casey loved guns, and there was an indoor firing range over on….. It was just off Burbank Boulevard, near the freeway. The Firing Pin, or something like that.

It still ranked as one of the scariest installs a Nerd Herder had ever performed. On the pretext of needing Casey for the heavy lifting, Chuck showed Big Mike a blank job sheet, and took Casey with him, on a lunchtime install.

The muscle bound employee, wearing a tight camouflage tee shirt with the name of the firing range on it placed a machine gun, with two legs at the front, on the bench in front of Casey and began to chant out, "This is the mark twelve GPMG M-60. It is a belt fed weapon, firing a standard N.A.T.O. round of seven point six two millimetre, using a disintegrating steel link…."

Chuck kind of tuned out at that stage. Chuck looked around and saw that all the staff were wearing the same type of cammo tee shirts. Chuck was wondering at the wisdom of the idea behind getting all the staff to wear camouflage at a firing range, when Casey cocked the weapon and opened the feed cover and then the feed plate without paying any attention to what his hands were doing.

-o0o-

After dinner, and at a lost to know what to do, Chuck headed over to Sarah's. Normally, Chuck relished his occasional nights off. It was like, 'if you tilt your head, and squint,' it almost felt like the old days.

That night, in her hotel room, she was less than impressed with his thinking outside the box.

"You took a clinically depressed assassin to a firing range, and you _gave _him a_ machine_gun?" she asked, incredulously.

"Well, yeah….. But we don't know that he's clinically…."

"But you let him have a gun!"

Chuck said plaintively, "I thought…. I thought it would cheer him up."

"Chuck…maybe…. What am I going to do with you?" she shook her head and started again, "Maybe this is one of those 'Let him figure it out for himself' moments."

"'Cause I tried that, and only five short years later, look how well that worked," muttered Chuck.

She smirked at him, "Well, _you_ are not a Marine Corps trained assassin."

He smiled half-heartedly back at her, "I don't need to be. We got Casey for that."

-o0o-

_**A.N.**__ I looked up on the Internet, to see if there is a rifle range within a day's drive of Burbank. _The Firing Line_ is an indoor range, located where I have noted it in the story. The user reviews/comments are simultaneously hilarious, and scary. One of them includes the magical phrase, 'Best date I've ever been on.'_


	5. Acceptance

_As of the ides of March 2013, I don't own Chuck et al._

-o0o-

**The voice of Majel Barrett Roddenberry – **And now, the conclusion to:

**Chuck vs the iPhone**

-o0o-

_It's going to be okay_

_I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it_

**4. Acceptance**

Week ending Sunday July 27, 2008

For Casey, things came to a head on Wednesday evening.

His iPhone was now so unreliable; it was to all intents and purposes, an expensive, and allegedly, high tech paper weight.

With no cell phone, Casey's life was now just one curly fax page away from being a return to living in the Eighties all over again. Except, mission wise that did complicate matters somewhat. He needed to have coms.

That night, some pencil necked geek at Langley had told him for the fourth time, to back up the phone, and then click _'restore.'_ Pencil Necked Dip Shit didn't want to believe Casey when Casey said he'd already done that. Three times.

As the roar that sounded like that of a hungry grizzly bear that had let its fifteenth backpacker slip through its paws, came from across the courtyard, Ellie asked Chuck, "Is John still having problems with his new phone?"

"Um, sounds like it," said Chuck now desperately hoping he could be left out of what was sure to follow. No such luck.

"Chuck, maybe you should…." Ellie waggled her pointy finger in Casey's direction. "…you know. Before Mrs Hedistian calls the cops… Again," she concluded with a head tilt towards number five, home of the infamous Mrs H.

On his way over to Casey's, he rang Sarah. Just in case. If something was going to happen to him, at least his last few moments on this mortal coil would be shared with the woman he'd fallen in love with.

She, on the other hand, seemed to find his bravery unreasonably amusing.

'_You'll be fine, Chuck,'_ came her voice from the phone. You could hear her trying to not smile.

"Honestly? I think I'd rather get hung upside-down by the ankles from the side of a four story building, than…." Chuck told her.

'_Wuss. Alright, I'm on my way over.'_

"Thanks," he said as he disconnected the call, and then tapped just a little bit louder than 'timorously' at Casey's door, "Case? Need a hand?"

Considering the noises that had been coming from the large NSA agent, Casey looked remarkably calm, and emitted a noise that could be interpreted to mean, "Come in."

"Still having problems with the phone?" asked Chuck.

Casey sighed. "Yeah. Dippetus Shippitus," he indicated the land line telephone, "seems to think I need to charge the thing longer, and that everything is a software glitch."

"Still?"

Casey nodded.

Chuck thought for a moment, and then he mentally reserved the right to kick himself later, but he might have had a temporary solution all along. "Um, hang on. I might have….. I'll be right back…" he cried over his shoulder as he moved briskly to the door.

Chuck headed straight to the box at the top of his closet. There, nestled amongst the spare extension leads, previous lap top speakers and surplus electronic flotsam that might come in hand someday, he found his target.

Chuck took his prize back over to Casey's. "You still got the box?" Chuck asked, indicating the iPhone that was the current bane of Casey's existence.

Casey fished through his hallway weapons locker, and held the box up.

Chuck said, "Great," and opening the box, he removed the small silver tool that Casey thought had looked like the world's smallest indoor TV aerial, along with what looked like a hollowed out standard sized SIM card.

Using the tool, Chuck took the micro SIM card out of Casey's iPhone, and placed it into the SIM card adaptor from the iPhone box, and _that_ then into the item he'd taken from his room, his old spare cell.

Sarah found the two men in her life grinning like idiots at each other as the old phone successfully sent and received text messages and phone calls.

As soon as Ellie saw that Sarah was over, Sarah was immediately invited to stay the evening. There was wine, and before bed, they watched one of Ellie's favorite TV shows that she'd recorded earlier. Some pretty boy actor, playing a forger who helped the FBI solve an astounding range of crimes.

Sarah smirked to herself, thinking, _'An actor that pretty, he's probably a woopsy._

-o0o-

Thursday morning, at 1147 hours, Casey strode into the Glendale Apple store. In the time it had taken Casey to drive all the way from Burbank over to Glendale, his fully charged, de-SIM carded, iPhone had run flat.

The young guy, Dave, in the blue tee shirt helped Casey out. Within ten minutes, most of which was Dave testing the old iPhone out the back, Casey had a brand new iPhone.

Casey charged it when he got back to the Buy More, and that evening, with Chuck's assistance, the SIM card was swapped over, and connected to Casey's computer for restoration of the previous back-up(s).

And with that, Casey had a working iPhone.

That evening, they had a mission.

-o0o-

"Chuck, just keep me happy. Confirm the plan for me, please?" she asked.

Chuck tore his attention away from the bank of laptops he'd been working on in the back of the van, and leant forward, to stick his head between the front seats, and said, mainly to Sarah, "Nothing out of the ordinary, sneak into the downtown headquarters of a global bunch of bad guys, copy… say about half a filing cabinet's worth of paperwork, hack into and clone a couple of dozen computers as well as one building server. All to be done within seventeen minutes, avoiding detection and to not draw attention or weapons fire in any way at all."

Casey semi grunted in passing judgment. Or possibly because he wasn't happy about the 'no gun play' rule.

"So, just your average Thursday night, then," Chuck 's follow up comment drew a smirk from her, and a wry smile to Casey's face, which he turned away to hide while he supposedly checked the intersection for traffic.

Naturally, things flamingoed up _(see note2)_ somewhere during the 'one building server' phase of the festivities.

It was a measure of his current life, that Chuck accepted his evenings could now include moments like this, riding in an elevator car, while he and his heavily armed companions wore black ninja-esque tactical gear, and no one thought that it was unusual. All that was needed was _The Girl From Ipanema_ playing from the car's speakers.

Once on the thirty eighth floor, Chuck disabled the security system, while Sarah took care of the lock and Casey patched himself into the CCTV system. Chuck gave a thumbs up, Casey emitted a satisfied grunt and Sarah flashed Chuck a grin as he shouldered the large glass door open for her.

The office environment has changed some since _The Matrix_ was filmed. The partitioned off cubicles that Thomas A. Ann-der-son had hidden in, were a thing of the past. Open plan was the word. Aside from the odd ficus, the trio were the tallest things in the office.

All the hard copy files they needed to copy were behind a door, conveniently labelled, 'Records.' The server rack stood not far away, in a glass sided cabinet that some office wag had decorated to look like an old British Police Call box.

Sarah weaved her magic on the lock to the glass door of the server rack, opening it up for Chuck. And with that, she joined Casey as he finished with the door to the records room.

Using one of General Beckman's much vaunted apes – a commercially available image converter, Sarah and Casey photographed their way through a manila folder each of documents. The converter app would convert the image into a smaller PDF format, and that was transferred to one of Casey's computers, and thence to Fort Meade. Neither spy would admit it, but they both felt like they were in an old James Bond film, using the cunningly disguised micro camera to take a total of just twelve incriminating photos. Sarah wondered how much of what they were imaging would actually be useful. Or end up in Chuck's head with the next upgrade.

Chuck sat cross-legged in front of the T.A.R.D.I.S. like server rack, his new iPhone plugged into one of the USB ports, conveniently provided for just such a purpose. The application Chuck was using was not quite commercially available. But it was very useful. Strictly speaking, it wasn't actually a virus, but more of a patch. What the patch was doing was providing a back-up service. One the administrators of the server neither wanted, nor benefited from.

The iPhone didn't have a progress bar to tell you how much longer the transfer and install would take. It just had the little whirly thing next to the service carrier's name. Neither did the server monitor atop the rack. While Chuck hadn't bothered to turn it on, even if he had, it wouldn't have shown anything out of the ordinary.

Which is kind of the point when you're installing government approved spyware.

The pair of army boots that stood waiting patiently for Chuck to notice them, were filled with a large man, that looked like he'd worn boots like these since his teenage years. Mainly because the uniform he was wearing was worn in a manner that indicated user familiarity, and looked like a dress uniform that the army might wear. So did the machine gun.

"Um…. Hi?" said Chuck. Ellie had taught him to be polite.

"You should probably get up," said the army-ish man in a calm tone.

Chuck considered his options. Getting up was probably the least painful option in Chuck's immediate future. Chuck got up. At least this was the politest Fulcrum factum Chuck'd had been caught by.

The guard looked Chuck up and down. He asked Chuck, "I don't suppose you have a rational explanation for being here that doesn't involve you assuming me to be a complete idiot?"

Chuck stood with his hands raised, halfway to lacing his fingers behind his neck. "Not that immediately spring to mind, no." Chuck stood with his hands behind his head.

Casey and Sarah failed to burst into the room, guns blazing. Chuck pressed the panic button on his watch a little harder this time. There was still a basic absence of his handlers, and all their lovely weaponry.

"When you've quite done trying to signal the CIA, I'll get you to come with me." At no point during the conversation did the guard point the gun at Chuck. It was as if Chuck wasn't worth the effort. "Oh," said the guard, as if he'd just remembered, "I'd better grab _that_, too," as he leant over to yank the white cable from the server. Chuck's phone swinging from the end of the cable.

As Chuck was led away, he asked, "Can I ask? Where did I go wrong? I thought I'd taken the alarm system out."

The Fulcrum guard said casually, "Sensor in the server door. You open it, little red light on the screen in the guard room."

Chuck was disappointed with himself for not seeing it. "Damn."

"Makes you feel any better, you're the first to get that far," said the guard.

That was when a green/gray cylinder rolled across the carpet, coming to a stop just in front of Chuck. Chuck recognised it, and bolted as far as he could before the stun grenade went off. He got four strides.

"Hey!" said the guard. After that, both Chuck and the guard were a little distracted by a loud noise.

BANG! Went the grenade, as they are wont to do.

After that, there seemed to be a surprising amount of automatic weapons fire. Friends of the first guard found the party, and wanted to join in. Chuck massaged his vision until he could make out a vague image of Sarah. He crawled towards her.

"What was the part about not attracting any attention again?" he asked her over the surprisingly loud sound of an M-16 on full rock-and-roll.

She grinned at him, "Oh, shut up. Throw some grenades, or something."

Chuck smiled back. He reached into one of his vest pockets, and took out a stun grenade. Things were hairy, but Sarah was with him, and he trusted her.

-o0o-

On Sunday evening, Chuck sat at home, Sarah curled up on the couch beside him on the couch, as they watched TV with Ellie and Devon. Some science documentary about the wonders of the solar system, presented by a young British professor, who had a distinctive speech pattern. Both Ellie and Chuck had loved a good science documentary since they were both in school.

Using his phone, he looked up the professor using the Wikipedia app, sharing the information with Sarah. They shared the screen, scrolling through, and then wandering off on tangential links.

Even though he knew she was pretending to be with him, Chuck thought he knew her well enough to know when she was projecting. Sarah was enjoying herself.

In college, Chuck'd had his encyclopaedia on disc. Actually, he still had it, somewhere. But since Wikipedia had come along, he hadn't bothered to install the bought encyclopaedia on subsequent computers.

He looked at the phone in his hand, half wishing he'd had it during the Stanford years. Music, games, online reference. All in the palm of your hand.

As is usually the case, the revelation hit him quietly sometime after the thought. The iPhone wasn't too bad, really.

He gazed down at Sarah, who paused in using his phone to now scroll through the Internet Movie Data Base to smile back up at him. His acceptance of the iPhone led to a wider realisation. He and Sarah may never be what they pretended to be. But, Sarah did give him what she could. And if all they could ever be was friends cuddled up on the couch, then that was what they would be.

He might want more, but he would take this. If this was all Sarah could give him, then he would gladly accept it. He accepted Sarah for who and what she was.

"What?" she wanted to know.

He realised he'd been staring, and Sarah, being Sarah had noticed. "Nothing," he said, with a slight smile, and joined her in reading the IMDB screen. Something about that FBI show that Ellie liked.

-o0o-

Casey looked at the iTunes screen. God knew how, but the program recognised the CD he'd put into the computer, and it listed the album name, and each track as it installed it onto his computer.

Using YouTube, Casey'd discovered how to specify which playlist was installed onto his iPhone. And, if Casey was honest with himself, then the kid had some reasonable music. At least he didn't have only gangsta rap, or 'the dog just died' country music.

Casey picked the eyes out of Chuck's playlists, and created his own list. Hankering for something a little more substantial, Casey got up, and from a dusty old archive box deep within his bedroom closet, he took a few of his old CDs out. He had a faint smile as he found his target. A double CD, with a Martian tripod firing the heat ray at a steam ship. How long had it been since he'd listened to The War Of The Worlds?

Casey checked the video from Bartowski's place. She was looking at him, like he was a container of yogurt, with pineapple chunks in it. He was staring at her like she was a pack of roasted peanuts, and he was starving.

So, everything was back to normal. Well, as normal as things ever got in this asylum.

-o0o-

_**Note1**_**. **_I have posted the original notes for this fiction, 'as is,' over on our sister site _**Fiction Press**_, using my same pen name. They are extremely rough, and are basically the half formed ideas for a rather different version of this. But there are some turns of phrase in there that I like and I'd hate to lose, but they are, for the most part, tailored to that particular incarnation of this fiction, and so there is no way I can use them in anything else.._

_**Note2**__: According to Holly, the spaceship __**Red Dwarf's**__ computer; 'to flamingo up,' is the same as, 'to cock up,' but on a far grander and a more flamboyant scale. _


End file.
